Chris Rogers

Human rights lawyer, Open Society Foundations

How many people have been killed and wounded as a result of drone strikes and how many civilians? What are the existing processes to prevent and mitigate harm to civilians?

Todd Gitlin

Professor of Journalism and Sociology, Columbia University

Will it do for journalists and editors to remain thoroughly tangled up in their own remarkably unquestioned assumptions about what constitutes news? It's long past time to reconsider some journalistic conventions.

Rev. Al Sharpton

President, National Action Network

Just as the appalling alleged acts of Jared Loughner, James Holmes, Adam Lanza, Timothy McVeigh and others do not represent their entire communities, we cannot allow the appalling acts of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar to speak for their respective communities whether it be Islamic, Chechen or any other.

Arianna Huffington

Why do we have so many disaffected young men in our culture, and what compels them to act out that disaffection in violent ways?

Jared Bernstein

Fmr. Obama administration economist; CNBC and MSNBC contributor

You can't order up your government dysfunction with a side of efficiency. You're either on the we're-the-Tea-Party-and-we're-here-to-shut-things-down bus or you're off of it.

David Freudberg

Host of the public radio series “Humankind”

We don't throw defendants at the mercy of lynch mobs. Instead, we calmly mete out justice. And that's what sets us apart from the rampaging criminals who terrorized this beautiful city at our annual rite of spring. And that's one way we'll begin to heal.

Art Brodsky

Communications consultant, proprietor of Continental Drive blog

To put the wide-ranging influence of the NRA into perspective, let's try an exercise in alternate history.

Ariel Wengroff

LGBT advocate, political strategist and poet

As governor of Vermont, with help from LGBT advocates and others, Dean led his state to become the first in the nation to pass civil unions. He recently took some time to speak with me about his take on the evolution of LGBT rights in the United States and where we're headed next as a nation.

Deborah Ramirez and Tara Lai Quinlan

It is true that not all terrorist acts in the United States can be avoided, and unfortunately more will succeed. But by incorporating voluntary, partnership-based community intelligence gathering practices into our national security infrastructure, we can improve our chances of preventing some attacks.

Laverne Cox

Actress, producer and transgender advocate

On Tuesday, March 12, I woke up at 4:30 a.m. to meet with a group of representatives from Housing Works who, every Tuesday from January to June, travel to Albany, N.Y., to speak with New York state legislators to encourage them to pass the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act.

Esha Bhandari and Carmen Iguina

The ruling will begin to correct an unjust system by providing essential protections for an extraordinarily vulnerable group -- immigrants with serious mental disabilities whom the government imprisons while their cases remain pending.

William Bradley

Political Analyst, NewWestNotes.com

If the Boston bombing was terrorism, as Tsarnaev claims, it looks like an especially boneheaded form of terrorism. Let's call it idiocratic terrorism. That's an adaptation of the title of the cult 2006 film Idiocracy, a satire about a dystopic future in which pretty much everyone is an idiot.

Judge H. Lee Sarokin

Retired federal judge

The Boston bombing is so horrific, and the evidence of guilt apparently so overwhelming, that the country might wish to go straight to the punishment stage, but that is not how our system of justice functions.

Amitai Etzioni

Professor of international relations, George Washington University

I should have responded that laws in general are made for knaves. Good citizens are assumed to do what is right on their own. We apply these laws only to those who for one reason or another pay no mind to others and the common good.

Norman Solomon

Author, 'War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death'

The "war on terror" is now engaged in various forms of military intervention in an estimated two-dozen countries, killing and maiming uncounted civilians while creating new enemies.

Julie Stewart

President, Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM)

Representatives Bobby Scott (D-VA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) today introduced a bill to authorize federal judges to depart below a mandatory minimum prison term in cases where the minimum sentence is not necessary to protect public safety.

Mark Olmsted

Writer, editor and blogger, thetrashwhisperer.blogspot.com

In the end, the only reason you need to not build a bomb is what is does to you. It is soul-killing to be a murderer. You want to do something with your feelings of alienation? Go out and practice random acts of kindness. Raise money for refugees. Fight for justice.